4:30 AM, Haruki Murakami, and my projected life.

As of Now

Hi. I can't go to bed. Alot, of thoughts are running through my head and I feel anxious. It's different from when I was younger. Or maybe it's the same. Or maybe in my attempts to distance myself from the "past (youth)" I'm trying to negotiate some sort of future(adulthood) which renders (once) familiar feelings foreign. Regardless. I'm going to channel this into some half assed blog post that I can refer to later. I hope you enjoy this future Ricky ( and readers).

I've been thinking a lot these days about the book, The Wind Up Bird Chronicles, by my dear friend, Haruki Murakami.

Have you read it? If you haven't its basically about a timid (steady) man who quits his job, in a sort of mid life crisis, and ends up spending his days listening to Bach as he makes pasta (al dente). His cat suddenly goes missing. So does his wife. Eventually a myriad of strange characters appear offering to help, inquire, and challenge the steady man. The man slowly starts to deteriorate. The man is inevitably left physically (and figuratively) all alone.To reclaim what is his, he must journey through his own consciousness to rescue his wife and himself from desolation.

This being my first Murakami book my mind became really wobbly. It felt like taking LCD. What struck me about the book was it's juxtaposition between the banal and the eerie. But it was different from David Lynch ( i know it was written before eraser head was even out so yea....take that Lynch) . It isn't being ironic or self referential like Twin Peaks. Instead, in my opinion, it's about the process of losing yourself and reclaiming it. Very straightforward. but so complicated. The book creates a dichotomy between the tangible and the subconscious. He is speaking on the idea that tangible life can be false, and the subconscious can be truth. Two people can start to emerge from this division. I really liked this notion of the divided self and I am very happy I discovered this BOOK.

But, I feel like i've been through this process. The process of the divided self. The process of creating distance to discover truth. So much of the last three years was a teeter totter of self fluctuations. Bouts of pretension masking insecurities. Basically my Murakami novel would read, that an insecure and very lonely and emotional kid tried to find power and meaning through superflourious routes. This created further distance from him and all those around him. He moved to London and desicrated his mind and was very close to losing himself all together. He came back home to a familiar life which he wish felt unfamiliar. Characters emerged and he was able to reclaim his essence. But today, he stands at a computer at 430 am with different anxieties.

I know who I am. I've reclaimed a lot of things this past year. But I'm scared of making choices that could possibly break me again. This has made me stronger but at the price of loneliness. I'm not a strong person and it doesn't take much to push me over. I want to do so much with my life. I know what i want to do with my life. But it isn't necessarily something i can tangibly spit out. That makes me worried. Because after this journey of the subconscious Im now looking for the tangible. I want something real.